Starting a Law Firm | MasterMind | Printers | Nolo.com

As you can see from the title of this post, there has been a lot going on around here lately. And, there is actually more to come (I just don't have all day to write on this blog, so I'm going to break it up). There's a lot of good information in here, and I hope you enjoy it.

Printer Review - HP OfficeJet Pro 8000 and HP LaserJet P1102w

I may have written a printer review on here before, but I am required to do so now. My printer quit on me on Monday, and as luck would have it, it was at a time when I really needed it. The printer I used to have was an HP OfficeJet Pro 8000. I think I've probably had it for about 16 months. It had been acting up nearly the whole time, failing to recognize paper in the chute, not knowing which tray to print out of (I bought an extra tray) and generally being a pain in my ass. But I'm not paper heavy, so I dealt with it.

Finally on Monday it just quit working. It told me it had a paper jam, but it didn't. It told me to do all of this stuff to fix it and it didn't work. Then I got online and found out that many other people had been having exactly the same problems I was. So, this is a negative review of the HP OfficeJet Pro 8000. Stay away from it if you can.

In search of a new printer, I knew I wanted two things - ease of use and reliability. Believe it or not, one of the major pains I had with my old printer was having to take the paper out whenever I needed an envelope and inserting an envelope. I wanted to avoid that time suck with my new printer. So I did.

I've only had the HP LaserJet P1102 for about 3 days, and so far it's working like a dream. It's got a wireless set up, and so far I've had zero problems. And it has a letter feed built into it, so every time I need a letter I just slide one in and print away. I'll update the review later, if necessary. But it looks like this one's a keeper (and it only cost me $100).

MasterMind Session in Seattle

If you read my last post (and I know you did!) then you know that a colleague and friend of mine, RJon Robins, was in town doing a CLE on starting a law firm and law firm management. I'd actually never me him before, though I'd spoken with him many times via email and telephone, so we decided to meet up, and while he was here, we decided to do this mastermind thing. I must say I had a great experience.

We did the mastermind session over dinner with two buddies of mine, RJon, and his wife. A mastermind session is in essence a meeting of like-minded business owners who get together to discuss, without reservation, their businesses and how to make them better. When you're in it it kind of feels like you're facing a firing squad. A lot of your empty assumptions are questioned and put to the test. But when you emerge from the session you have not only a fresh outlook on your business but some real world ideas and solutions to help your business flourish and grow.

Want more details? Okay.

The three of us (RJon didn't face the firing squad, only my two buddies and I) started out by writing down the top three problems we have with our business right now. My top three were: (1) too much time doing administrative tasks; (2) no working system to effectively manage cases/time; and (3) increasing the regularity of potential client calls. I told the group this, and then we dove in.

But the key here is that we didn't start with solutions. We started by diagnosing the problem. Why am I spending so much time doing administrative tasks? Because I don't have anyone else helping me? Why don't I get help (obvious)? Because I'm afraid of expending the money on help and then not making the money to pay for that person. Why am I afraid of that? (and this is where the real breakthroughs come in - changing your business and way of doing things won't happen unless you get to the root of the problem and work on that) Because I have an idea in my mind that money is something to be held onto tightly, not parted with easily, and I want to make sure I'm getting value for what I'm paying. Ding - light bulb moment, because this isn't the most beneficial way to think about money and your law firm.

After identifying the underlying potential problems, we talked about what our relationship with money should be like. And, to be honest, it's something I know, but not something I can easily put into practice. And this is something we can all be cognizant of (which is why I'm writing about it here). We should think of money like a drug dealer does. Yeah, I said it.

How do drug dealers think of money? First of all, I'm not talking about the guy selling dime bags on the corner. I'm talking about your higher ups. Think Johnny Depp in the movie Blow. He got into the drug business as a low level drug runner. But, instead of taking his money and stashing it away (or blowing it on drugs) he used it as leverage to make more money. Then he used that money in the same way. For him, money wasn't something to be hoarded, it was something to be put to work.

And that's what I need to do. Put my money to work, to free up my time, so I can make more money. Think about it like this. I can have someone help me out administratively for $15/hour. If someone is doing this work, I can do work that brings in at least $100/hour. That means by spending $15 an hour I can make $85 an hour. Those are numbers I like to see.

I bet you're wondering what I'm doing about this aren't you? Don't worry, I'll talk about it tomorrow.

Nolo.com Update

By the way, if you've made it this far in the article, thanks. I appreciate the reading. Up next, as you can tell from the headline, is an update on my experience with nolo.com. I'm writing this because I received an email from them probably a month ago inquiring as to the status of my subscription to them. They wanted to know if I'd noticed any more leads coming from them.

Sadly, I have not.

Here's the thing about using services like this, though. It's impossible to really know exactly where your leads are coming from. If you ask people, they rarely remember ("the internet" is a common response) because it's not that important to them how they got to you, unless it's a referral. In a different market with a different kind of practice it might really pay off for you.

But here's another thing to think about - and this goes to the mastermind session. If you are paying $130 a month (which is about what I'm paying) and that gets you one case a month (which it might), then you've potentially paid $130 to make $3000 or whatever your fee might be. Is that worth it? It probably is. Every law firm marketing tactic doesn't have to hit a home run. A bunch of singles will still get you a bunch of runs.

Starting a Law Firm | Nolo.com and Yodle Follow Up

If you haven't started your law firm yet, one thing you can be sure of the minute you put your website up is that you will start getting marketing calls. People will be calling you and promising you things like "I can get you on the first page of Google," and "we have x number of leads come here each day that we want to send to you." It's going to sound really great, and most of it is going to be crap.

You ever hear of the saying if it sounds too good to be true it probably is? It's not a saying, it's a fact.

With that being said, however, if you are starting a law firm you are going to have to find a way to get clients. Most of the really good ways you do yourself. But there are some supplemental means of marketing your law firm, and two that I tried were Yodle, which specializes in Google adwords ads (the ads you see at the top and right hand side of your web browser when you search for things) and Nolo.com, a legal website (you can visit their site and see exactly what it is). I've posted Yodle reviews before (you can find Yodle review 1, Yodle review 2, Yodle review 3, and Yodle review 4 by clicking on the links) and a nolo.com review before, but I wanted to update them to reflect my recent experience. Here we go.

Nolo.com Review Update

One of the cool things about this blog is that when I write something about a company, particularly one that cares about it's image, I almost always get a follow up call from someone at the company. If it's a good post, I get a thank you call. If it's a bad post (or less than flattering) I get a call to discuss. My last review of nolo.com as it relates to starting a law firm wasn't great but wasn't terrible. The gist of it was that I don't think any of those sites send me good, qualified leads. Period.

I went on to point out that I bought the nolo.com subscription because of the links they could give me, but that I wasn't thoroughly impressed with the traffic they were sending.

And then, right on cue, I got the call.

And I must apologize, because the nolo.com rep that called was very nice and I promised to write about our conversation on here at least 3 weeks ago. And I'm finally doing it.

What she told me was what I expected to hear. They get x number of people to their site a month from Washington searching "x" keywords, x number of people went to your site and stayed around for a bit. In the end, I think 32 people found me from that site in about 9 weeks, or about 4 a week. That's not bad.

But here's the thing I'm curious about. How many of them were shopping for an attorney in Seattle and how many were just out looking around for information? The reason why I think it was the latter is this - here are the keywords used to get to my information:

Dealing with a DUI

What to do if you are pulled over

Revoked drivers license

Search and seizure

Getting out of jail

I know from experience that people are calling me when they search for a few specific keywords - namely Seattle DUI attorney and all of its variations (Seattle DUI lawyer, etc.), and Seattle criminal attorney and all of its variations. But people aren't calling me when they search for "search and seizure." They're either curious or bored or trying to solve their boyfriend or girlfriend's case on their own.

I think the bottom line is this: I was happy they called. I was happy they stand by their product. And I don't mind their product (I think I pay $167 a month). I just don't think it's as effective as what they claim. Will I keep it? I probably will. But if I were just starting a law firm would I buy this service and then just wait for the phone to start ringing? No.

Yodle Review Update

I've written about Yodle on here a bunch of times. And I'm now fairly convinced that as each day passes the ads placed all over the place are becoming less and less relevant. Think about it this way, when you search, do you ever click on those ads? I don't. In fact, I don't even see them. I automatically go to the search results. I think every day more and more people are getting that way, particularly with the advent of the Google places placement at the top of the results.

So, as of this month, I'm no longer using Yodle. I was putting about $1,000 a month toward it, and I figured I could better use it in other places (like marketing to referral sources, which are a huge boon to business). So, you can thank me later, but this will be my last post about Yodle.

General Update

Since this post isn't long enough already (insert sarcasm here), I'll give you a little bit of an update about where my practice is at. This money has by far been the best month for the firm. I pulled in somewhere between 13 and 14K, which is awesome. And there isn't much sign of is slowing down.

I think I'm going to give it another month or two, and if business stays steady, I'm going to hire on some help. I've been looking at getting a law clerk, but at this time of year, pickings are slim. And I need someone that's available to answer the phones and do administrative stuff so I can spend more time doing this and working on my cases. I'll keep you updated on how that process goes.

As always, if you want any specific information, let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to address it.

Nolo.com Advertising. Is it Worth It? A Review.

As you know, I'm constantly on the lookout for ways to market my law firm. If you've never started a law firm before, you probably don't think about it that much, but getting people to pick up the phone and call you when they need you is the most important thing there is. Great attorneys aren't great unless they have someone to help, right?

So, I got a call the other day from a representative at nolo.com. They acted as if I should know who they are and that they are all over the place. Honestly, I didn't really know much about them. But, to me, it didn't make much of a difference. I still took the time to listen to what they had to say to see if they could help me at all. I think most people hang up. I listen. Most of the time I say no. Sometimes I say yes (and then I let you know about it!).

What they offer is a kind of personal profile on their site. And, though I signed up a couple of weeks ago, I remember that an attractive aspect of the site was that there were a limited number of attorneys in the space, and that you had the ability to build out your own profile, which was quite extensive. In addition to that within your profile you get to create 25 links and point them wherever you want. As you know, I love links, so this is what put it over the edge.

The pricing is honestly a little steep. Essentially you are paying for an online yellow pages ad, which gets crawled who knows how much (I'll periodically update this so you know), for about $160/month. If you pay up front and enter into a longer contract, it's cheaper. But I only went for a year. If it works out, I'll keep it up.

Remember, if you have decided to start a law firm, the number one question you are going to have to answer, and answer fast, is how you are going to get clients into the door. If you don't have an answer, then you are going to have a tough go of it.

I talk to people a lot about starting a law firm. I encourage it. I tell them what I've done right and wrong, and I try to help them through the process. But time and time again I ask them what they are doing and it's reading the law. Read the law when you have a client to work for. You have been taught how to learn the law. Now is the time to get clients. Put your energy toward that, and when you get someone that needs help, learn everything you need to help them.

I can guarantee you nolo.com will be contacting me to talk about this review. They always do. I'll let you know if I left anything out of the post.